11 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Previous work by the group convinced the researchers to pursue development of focused cognitive reappraisal training as a novel approach to treatment of BPD, either as stand-alone treatment or in concert with evidence-based treatments of BPD. The present proposal aims to refine and test a proposed clinical intervention for BPD patients, training in reappraisal-by-distancing, in terms of its ability to influence hypothesized neural and behavioral targets and, once that is established, to demonstrate its ability improve clinically relevant outcome measures.
This study seeks to understand emotion regulation in those with young adults with anxiety using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback, a tool that allows individuals to control brain activity. The goal of this project is to understand how receiving feedback about one's own brain activity relates to emotion regulation ability. This work will help the study team understand the brain areas involved in emotion regulation and could lay the groundwork to test if psychotherapy outcomes can be enhanced using neurofeedback. The study hypotheses include: * Participants receiving veritable-Neurofeedback (NF) will show a greater activation increases in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) compared to sham-NF * Participants receiving veritable-NF will show greater cognitive reappraisal (CR) ability compared to those receiving sham-NF * PFC activation will positively correlate with CR ability
This study seeks to understand emotion regulation in those with anxiety using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback, a tool that allows individuals to control brain activity. The goal of this project is to understand how receiving feedback about one's own brain activity relates to emotion regulation ability. This work will help the study team understand the brain areas involved in emotion regulation and could lay the groundwork to test if psychotherapy outcomes can be enhanced using neurofeedback. The study hypotheses include: * Participants receiving veritable-Neurofeedback (NF) will show a greater activation increase in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) compared to sham-NF * Participants receiving veritable-NF will show greater cognitive reappraisal (CR) ability compared to those receiving sham-NF * Prefrontal cortex activation will positively correlate with CR ability
Previous work by the study group convinced the study team to pursue development of focused cognitive reappraisal training as a novel approach to treatment of BPD, either as stand-alone treatment or in concert with evidence-based treatments of BPD. The present proposal aims to refine and test a proposed clinical intervention for BPD patients, training in reappraisal-by-distancing, in terms of its ability to influence hypothesized neural and behavioral targets and, once that is established, to demonstrate its ability improve clinically relevant outcome measures.
The goal of this trial is to refine and test a novel emotion-regulation based psychosocial intervention designed to reduce suicide risk in middle-aged and older adults (50-90 years old) who have been discharged after a suicide-related hospitalization (i.e. for suicidal ideation or suicide attempt).
A randomized control trial of a videogame intervention to assess and improve school climate.
Community participants will visit the neuroimaging facilities at CU Boulder for a single experimental session. In all studies, participants will complete pre-task questionnaires (trait measures), and a brief mood measure, followed by a task training in which a research assistant describes and gives examples of cognitive reappraisal in response to negative images. Then, participants complete an event-related, picture-based cognitive reappraisal task for 30-45 minutes, during which whole-brain BOLD signal will be collected. Following the task, participants will once again respond to a mood measure, and answer a series of questions regarding the task they have completed, including difficulty of regulation, or any images that were personally relevant. The researchers predict that the positive emotion induction will result in powerful effects on self-reported emotion which may or may not interact with the cognitive reappraisal condition. Participants will be trained to use reappraisal to increase positive emotion, and they will be asked to respond with the reappraisal tactic category that best fits the reappraisal they used for each image. The researchers predict greater use of future-focused tactics will be associated with greater reappraisal success, which in turn will result in greater recruitment of vmPFC and connectivity between vmPFC and other prefrontal regions.
The purpose of the study "Stress, Emotion Regulation, and Alcohol in Women Veterans" is to learn about the effects of negative emotion and stress on behavior (including alcohol use) among women Veterans, including women with and without posttraumatic stress disorder. Additionally, the study looks at whether a woman's use of emotion regulation techniques changes the association between stress or negative emotion and behavior. Lastly, the study examines how women's reactions to stress, and the effects of stress, vary across the menstrual cycle - depending on the level of circulating hormones.
Excessive eating of energy-dense foods and obesity are risk factors for a range of cancers. There are programs to reduce intake of these foods and weight loss, but the effects of the programs rarely last. This project tests whether altering the value of cancer-risk foods can create lasting change, and uses neuroimaging to compare the efficacy of two programs to engage the valuation system on a neural level. Results will establish the pathways through which the programs work and suggest specific treatments for individuals based on a personalized profile.
1. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 1.1 Justification The purpose of the project is to examine the effect of breathing biofeedback and thoughts about stress on performance under stress and cigarette cravings. Smoking rates in the United States have been steadily going down over the past 50 years, and now 16.8% of adults smoke (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). Most smokers try to quit, but end up going back to smoking (Garcia-Rodriguez et al., 2013; Piasecki, 2006; Rafful et al., 2013). The reasons people go back to smoking may have something to do with stress in their lives, particularly for women who smoke. This study wants to see if we can reduce temporary stress and lower craving to smoke after stress. 1.2 Description of the Research Project Approximately 60 adult women will participate in the study. Participants must be between 18 and 65 years old, able to read English fluently, and must agree to engage in the research procedures (stress protocol, physiological assessment, breathing training, questionnaires) to participate. People who are taking medications that interfere with physiological assessment are excluded from participating including people with: self-identified substance use problems, self-identified psychosis, morbid obesity (BMI\>40), and people who take anti-cholinergic medication, beta blockers, Ritalin, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressants or bupropion, varenicline, antipsychotic medication, or nicotine replacement therapy. People who have a cardiac rhythm abnormality or major neurological problem are also excluded from the study. Also, participants may not participate if they are pregnant or color-blind. Participation is strictly voluntary. 2. PROGRESSION OF THIS STUDY 2.1 Procedures The study visit procedures will take place at the Emotion and Psychopathology Laboratory at Rutgers University, located at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Healthcare Policy, and Aging Research. Participants will first complete some questionnaires and provide some basic information about themselves (demographic information, responses to emotion and stress, and smoking history). Next, participants will engage in a baseline psychophysiological assessment where investigators will examine heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. Next, investigators will either ask participants to sit quietly for 30 minutes while completing a computer task and watching short videos, or practice a specific deep breathing exercise for 30 minutes. Then participants will do three tasks on a computer. The tasks will ask participants to trace different shapes, answer math problems while receiving feedback about how they're doing, and identify colors and words on a screen. Finally, participants will be asked to sit quietly for 15 minutes before investigators remove the psychophysiological recording equipment. One week after the study visit, investigators will contact participants via phone to ask them some questions about the study visit. 2.2 Duration of the study This study visit will last approximately 3 hours. Length of the visit may vary because each individual may complete procedures at a different pace. The phone call after the study visit will last approximately 10-15 minutes.
Psychological treatments are effective, but take a long time and can be burdensome. Therefore, avenues to optimize behavioral treatments are needed. Despite important advancements, neuroscience has had a limited effect on psychotherapy development. Therefore, one paradigm shift would be to develop neuroscience informed behavioral treatments. The investigators identified from the literature a problem that affects several mental disorders (emotion dysregulation) and a neural circuit that underlies this important concern. They found that this circuit is dysfunctional in those with psychopathology but can be changed with treatment. The goal is in one session to train this brain network to operate more efficiently and to test the short and long term effects of this intervention. The investigators plan to engage this brain network using a traditional psychotherapy strategy (cognitive restructuring) and to enhance learning using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a neuromodulation technique through which magnetic stimulation enhances the electrical activity in brain areas close to the scalp. The study team proposed two studies to examine this novel approach, In one of the studies 83 participants were enrolled and 47 eligible participants were divided into 3 groups. All participants were trained in emotion regulation by first being asked to remember an event where they experienced a negative emotion and then being instructed either to think differently about the event, or to wait. Participants simultaneously underwent either active (left or right side of brain) or sham rTMS. In a second study 65 participants were enrolled, and 31 were assigned to either active left or sham rTMS guided using neuroimaging results. Across both studies, the investigators measured regulation in the lab and during a-week long naturalistic assessment. Participants in the second study returned for a follow up neuroimaging visit at the end of this week. Participants returned for a one moth follow up assessment and to rate feasibility, acceptability, and provide feedback. This proof of concept set of studies demonstrated feasibility and preliminary efficacy for this approach, which opens new frontiers for neuroscience informed treatment development.